alfre woodard

Katherine Heigl’s and Alfre Woodard’s White House characters on State of Affairs are different from anything women have done on TV before, period. You may have heard of the Bechdel test (or read about it in Glamour!): the informal rule for assessing girl power on-screen. If a movie or show has (a) at least two female characters who (b) talk to each other about something other than a man, it passes. If not, it fails. Well, after my sneak peek at the Monday-night NBC drama State of Affairs, premiering tonight, I’m happy to report that the show passes hard-core. As the White House’s top CIA briefer and the President of the United States, respectively, Charleston Tucker (Katherine Heigl, 36) and Constance Payton (Alfre Woodard, 62) have zero time to gossip. Ninety percent of their conversations are about national security. But Tucker and Payton also have a personal connection. Suspend disbelief for a sec: Tucker had been engaged to Payton’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan (or, as my twist-loving heart hopes, not killed). When was the last time you saw two women directing policy while mourning lost love and resisting that whole evil-in-law cliché? Here, Heigl and Woodard get candid read more